Why were in-game GMs removed?

[Despitebeing-incendius]

@Lunkel-garona

seemingly innocent question

There’s nothing nefarious about OP’s question, regardless of that individual’s sincerity. The discussion ITT is, for the most part, genuine and reinforces that many players would view the restoration of in-game GMs as a sign of good health for the game. What purpose would these forums serve if not for players to voice their concerns for the game?

[Pogroquikd-area-52]

Gotcha. You want GMs in game more so…not trolling.

Though if the topic was something you disagreed with it would be trolling, right?

@Despitebeing-incendius

What purpose would these forums serve if not for players to voice their concerns for the game?

Yeah, right. The guy has been trolling constantly the past couple weeks. Or perhaps Lunkel is just a lot smarter then you are.

[Lunkel-garona (Lunkel)]

@Despitebeing-incendius

There’s nothing nefarious about OP’s question, regardless of that individual’s sincerity. The discussion ITT is, for the most part, genuine and reinforces that many players would view the restoration of in-game GMs as a sign of good health for the game

All the OP did is claim, without evidence, that when there was more GMs in game there were less bots, which is completely false. In fact, I’d argue it was worse with constant whispers and mail from gold selling services and even hundreds of dead level 1 characters spelling out the name of gold selling websites in capital cities.

[Despitebeing-incendius]

The OP is a ‘Why’ with anecdotal bits and an opening of the discussion (now 124 replies later) with:

@Garmuck-destromath

I guess I don’t see the reason behind seeing them removed, it seems to be an overall net loss to the game.

Many users have contributed with their earnest thoughts on the matter, myself one of them. If you don’t want to be a part of that conversation, simply mute the thread. Do not derail it.

[Breadisfunny-turalyon (Breadisfunny)]

because you wouldnt stop making these threads.

[Darraffe-faerlina]

@Garmuck-destromath

I remember a time in WoW many years, maybe even as far back as TBC/Wrath time period where the in-game GMs made the world so much more interactive and fun.

they cost too much and blizzard wanted to not pay money…

[Nobully-blackrock (Nobully)]

@Despitebeing-incendius

Ive created multiple tickets, threads, and in-game reports about exploitative behavior is Classic Era realms for the couple years that I’ve played it. The cheating is still ongoing.

there’s a specific email for this.

you’ve just given another perfect example of people expecting GMs to do a job which has nothing to do with them… and clogging up ticket queues for no good reason.

Want to Report an Exploit or Hack

@Despitebeing-incendius

Namely, anyone in-game can easily identify flyhackers and an algorithm that ‘needs more data’ is less effective than a few more boots on the ground.

again, this is not the job of GMs.
GMs exist to assist players with game-breaking issues, which can’t be resolved via the multitude of self-help options.

@Lorina-bloodsail-buccaneers

Genuine game breaking bugs

which should be reported via the in-game bug report, or the bug report forum.
GMs don’t fix bugs.

@Garmuck-destromath

I didn’t see much botting back in the days when in game GMs were a thing.

I guess you didn’t know where to look…
BGs were at the point where you’d be lucky to have 3 real players in the instance.

[Látias-dalaran]

@Pinar-stormrage

i died respawn my character because clearly it was a problem on your end!

If you die and have no way of getting to your corpse then its a problem on their end realistically the best way to address this would be to let us fly as a ghost anywhere

[Quistist-kelthuzad]

I was actually friends with a cata GM for a while.

To my understanding Blizzard had this customer service center out in texas or something. And they realized how much of a ‘‘waste’’ of money it was and cut it?

It’s a shame! I remember being a kid and calling Blizzard and it was so cool. some night elf babe was the (automated) concierge for it … was neat. idk if they still do that anymore even but…yeh.

things change. corporations follow each other I’ve noticed. Someone got the big idea to cut all ‘‘unnecessary’’ things and all the other corps followed suits it seemed. As if all the CEO’s fill up each others linkedin pages and everything echo chambers. idk.

[Simmara-frostwolf]

Agreed - I thought they were fun

[Azurathel-moon-guard]

There are still some in-game GMs. Just VERY limited.

Most things people put in tickets for can be fixed with the automated systems Blizz has implemented over the years. That’s why tickets have always taken soooo long to get responses to.

[Hammburglar-tichondrius]

I remember back in vanilla that the GM’s would spawn mobs/whatever right in Orgrimmar by the auction house for us grunts to DPS down…things from a huge Murlock to a monster lobster. There’d be like 30 of us on that thing to bring it down. We had fun. The GM’s had fun. I miss those times.

[Garmuck-destromath]

Hopefully they consider bringing them back.

[Mortiv-bonechewer]

I can still remember in EverQuest, they had a chat area on the log in screen for all the servers and a GM help chat room. you could go to the GM chat room when you had a bug or server help. We were there one day, the servers just crashed, we checked in to see what happened, the game and chat area was still working but the game was down, one of the GM’s logged in, he said if the game is down, the problem isn’t EverQuest, your internet is down. We were like if our internet was down, we couldn’t even get into THESE chat rooms…that GM left the room.

[Velviita-windseeker]

2 words. Cost cutting.

[Kaag-runetotem]

I can think of a few reasons off the top of my head:

1. Bots are cheaper
2. You have to pay people to do things like that
3. Bots don’t require pay for 24/7 shifts
4. Blizzard saw an change to pay out less money
5. Money

[Despitebeing-incendius]

@Nobully-blackrock

there’s a specific email for this.

Already emailed them, multiple times. My complaint is a long-standing issue with more facets to it than a buggy line of code and beyond the scope of this conversation.

@Nobully-blackrock

expecting GMs to do a job which has nothing to do with them

In short, you don’t have the information to make this claim.

[Rita-velen]

Well, it’s a little complicated to train moderators to also play a video game, teleport places, use the chat, only to miss information anyway. It’s much easier to just give someone access to chat lots in a text file and have them look through the documents like non-WoW playing computer users regularly do.

[Silvaniaa-aggramar]

@Garmuck-destromath

Just curious why this happened.

I remember a time in WoW many years, maybe even as far back as TBC/Wrath time period where the in-game GMs made the world so much more interactive and fun.

When you were doing something you weren’t supposed to, they would send a special Blizzard stamped message in-game, some would even role play, and they would tell you to knock it off or have a real conversation with you regarding your actions and it felt good having real employees watching over the population.

I find that when the whole in-game GM system got removed, we started to see a direct rise in botting and more illegal activities as it felt like there was no real policing of the community past a ticket system that also seemed to have become automated.

In-game GMs also added a lot of flavor to the game via cool hidden content like the GM Island and some of them would pop up in game to bug test live, and they would have those blue hood outfits and be max level and there were even GM Weapons they temporarily let players have back then, it just felt like a fun community outreach from Blizzard.

I guess I don’t see the reason behind seeing them removed, it seems to be an overall net loss to the game.

why do i wait 40+ day for ticket answer? and then there is some strange bot that dont solve anything and i must wait 14 an other days for real human?
at least in europe…

[Fairlight-emerald-dream]

And then you’d need the support personnel infrastructure to support them, such as training, management oversight, GM QA, etc. There’s lots of ancillary costs associated with propping up a division of people within a company.